Holiday visions and dreams for the future

A gal can’t just sit around the office, going through old unread back issues of the Economist, tearing out the now-inadvertently funny Accenture ads featuring Tiger Woods.

“At a time when it’s tougher than ever to be a Tiger…”

What a hoot!  But even this gets old after a while.

***

The other night, while I was walking up Yonge Street to the Terroni’s near St. Clair, I had a vision.  A mobile home, decorated with a Menorah, was driving up the street, blasting Yiddish music from a loudspeaker.*

A young fellow, fully bearded and donning the traditional black hat, was hanging out the back window of the vehicle.  He was grinning from ear to ear, and I must admit, so was I.  I had never seen anything like this before in my life.

“Are you Jewish?” he called out, clearly implying that if I was, I could maybe join the mobile celebration.

I shrugged sadly and shook my head as I replied in the negative.

He waved goodbye as the vehicle kept driving down the street, the happy music fading into the night as quickly as it arrived. 

These are the moments in this city that I would not trade for anything in the world.

***

Whether you light the candles,

or trim a tree;

Whether you celebrate with family,

friends,

or prefer to spend time by yourself -

Have a happy and safe holiday season.

2010 is our year, I can feel it.  The year when all of our dreams come true – even the ones we don’t know about yet.

*I was raised Catholic, so I’m probably getting it all wrong.  But I know all the words to every song in Fiddler on the Roof, so that should count for something, right?

***

PS:  This is for you.  Yes, you.  But for me, it will always be Bay.

The Last Goodbye At Summerhill by Anne Douris and Dan Busheikin.

The shallow end

I was very excited to see a message on OK Cupid that included capital letters and punctuation:

“You seem like one that appreciates humour and laughter. You mention red wine – any recommendations? I’ve been enjoying the Fuzion and Croc Crossing Malbec lately.”

I deleted the message without even looking at the profile.

Civic heart disease

Muddy York.

Hogtown.

Toronto the Good.

Hollywood North.

The T-dot.

The City That Works.

Does it still work?  I’m not so sure anymore, and I haven’t been for a very long time.  It seems to me that Toronto has been resting on its laurels for too many years, working despite a severe lack of care and maintenance. 

Toronto is the heart of an obese man trying to run a marathon.  A steady diet of deficient and misplaced funding has deprived the country’s most important muscle of what it needs to pump the blood.  The arteries are hopelessly clogged.

Every time Toronto collapses, the team of three doctors hover over the body, contemplating the wisest course of treatment.

“I am afraid that if I operate, I will get blood on my hands,” says the local doctor.

“I will provide a transfusion, but only if your operation cures the coughs of  these other three neighbouring patients,” says the provincial doctor.

“He’s faking.  Put him back on the track,” says the federal doctor.

And so Toronto keeps running, pumping capital into the economy at a slower rate, pushing people through its streets more slowly.  Struggling to survive. 

It’s a testament to the strength of the city that it has been able to function; but oh, what could it be if only someone could give it a heart transplant?  What if it was fed and nurtured and given a clear vision? 

The patient is ready.  Who is ready to heal the city?

Goal setting exercise

Last year I had vague notions. 

This year, I have goals.

A clean sheet of paper.  Headings.  Underlined.  No, wait…bold, with italics. 

Bulleted lists or numbered?  Numbers seem more definitive, somehow. 

Other people I know have five year goals.  Last year, I couldn’t see past the end of a week.  Sometimes, it was only a day.  Get through the day.  Get through another day. 

I’m happy with a year.  A year is a very respectable amount of time.  Instead of grasping at spiderwebs and feeling them disintegrate between my fingers, I have a rope.  Something strong, something permanent, something to follow when the path gets murky. 

It will get murky.

Finances?  Important.  Budget.  Plan.  Monitor. 

Buy property.  Put down the roots that I’ve been reluctant to nurture.

Work plans?  Now that I have a career, I should probably have career goals.

Re-learn my French?  No, I’d rather learn Hindi.  The Bollywood Oscars are coming to Toronto, you know.

Travel someplace new and exotic.  Push the boundaries.

Finish the novel.  This also requires starting the novel.

Do yoga.  Work out.  Watch less TV.  Go to the theatre more often.

This is easier than I thought.

Relationships.

Blank.

The pen stops.

Blank?  There must be something.  Let’s try again.

Relationships.

Blank.

What do I want?  I must want something.  Write.

Blank.

Keep asking questions.  Where do I want this to be at the end of 2010?

Blank.

It’s all right.  Let’s leave this one blank, and come back to it later.

***

Apparently this blog will forever be tied to Sesame Street, and not necessarily in a good way.  Lately, some people have found the Shoebox by taking a wrong turn en route to the following destinations:

Sesame Street on heroin

Sesame Street pissed off

And, my new personal favourite:

XXX Sesame Street

I feel dirty.

What a difference a year makes

I can’t recall where we first met
A cafe or the cigarette
The month the week the day the hour
If the bells rang out from every tower

And I can’t believe the streets were gold
And you wanted me so I am told
When the laughter wandered down that road
We’d go

Hey, I’m no prize, no gigolo
When the market’s high, baby, I sell low
And I missed the train my heart was riding on

So I walk these streets we used to know
Where Christmas lights are blinking stop and go
And I think about you every time it snows

I was always wrestling
I was always chasing spring
When the rain was falling from the sky

Now the moon is shining in
The empty room where we had been
And the skyline sings a Broadway lullaby

Now I feel the cold down to my toes
I loved you but that’s how it goes
And I think about you every time

I think about you every time

I think about you every time it snows

“Every Time it Snows” by Marc Jordan – go listen to most of it, here, right now. 

If it’s possible to fall in love with a song, I fell in love with this song last year, on my first New Year’s Eve by myself.   And yes, if I recall correctly, it was snowing.

I wonder if it will snow this year.

 

%$^@#$!!!

I’m in a bit of a mood today.

Wipe that surprised look off your face. 

What do you mean, “this isn’t a surprised look”?

The last time I saw that look, I threw a shoe at it from across the room.  I missed, but it’s the unhinged thought that counts, right?

Enjoy this list of things that I hate.

(1)  Twenty something policy advisors who alternate between wanting my assistance and looking down their self-righteous noses at me.  Live and learn, my little Kool-Aid drinkers.

(2)  Those f*ckers on Queen Street who insist on driving 80km/h on a morning when it can only serve to spray slush all over pedestrians.  I hope you spin out into a lamp post.

(3)  Anyone who contracts pink eye from their %$%$^!!! kids and then feels the need to share it with the rest of us.  It’s contagious, you twit.

(4)  People who spit.  All of them.  There is never a reason to spit in public.  So sayeth the woman with chronic motion sickness.

(5)  Shufflers.  How many shoes do you go through in a year because you’re too damn lazy to lift up your feet when you walk?

(6)  The zombie PATH horde.  Some days these people depress me more than others.  And why do I always feel like I’m walking against the flow, no matter which direction I’m heading, at any time of day?

(7)  Consultants. 

(8)  Breakfast television hosts. 

(9)  Mother Nature.

Have a nice day.

Marvin is angry, and so am I. Source: Unknown, but brilliant.

I fought the law, and the law won, part II

Having recently received a glossy piece of propaganda in the mail, I thought I’d share a few more of my own thoughts on the practice of law.*

The facts:

1.  Large corporate law firms are generally run the same way – a partnership structure.  There are partners, traditionally the owners of the firm, and associates, who are employees.

2.  In the past, after approximately seven or nine years of hard labour in the salt mines, associates would typically be given an opportunity to become a partner of the law firm.   This benefit does not come without a cost and some risk; the associate must “buy in” to the equity of the firm in order to reap the rewards of shared profitability. 

3.  Partnership, however, is not assured.  Most firms have a Partnership Committee, generally consisting of senior Partners, that engages in rigorous analysis to determine which associates will achieve Partnership status.

4.  The amount of profit that may be drawn by each equity-owning Partner is generally related to the number of Partners in the firm (Total Profit/# of Partners = Draw).  

Let’s review:

1.  A small group of originators forms an entity.

2.  This group of originators recruits other individuals into this entity with a promise of increased profit and ownership status.  These individuals, in turn, recruit others to join the entity.

3.  The originators determine who takes a share of the profit.  They receive little or no benefit from increasing the number of originators, because it will generally decrease the profit per originator.

And for your final consideration:

The “NON-EQUITY PARTNER”.  The concept of the partner, who is not really a Partner.  Limited or no ownership in firm equity, and limited voting rights on issues of firm management.

Here is a picture that I’d like to see on the cover of the next glossy legal magazine I receive:

Luckily for them, most lawyers I know are terrible at math.

* Not the rule of law, the practice of law.

To Blog or Not to Blog

That is the question.

Actually, it’s not much of a question.  I would be writing, if not for some pesky and trivial real-life concerns like having a career and paying the bills.  Go figure.

I promise that I will be better, and that I have a Plan of Action* designed to promote blogging stimulus.

Thanks to everyone who, for reasons unbeknownst to me, have continued to visit during my absence.  Especially those of you who used the following Google search terms to get here:

• Sesame Street gangsters
• white drug dealers
• flat headed sperm

And my personal favourite:

•  how a man should wear his scarf

You’re definitely in the wrong place, but I welcome you nonetheless.

If you want to leave a comment, please let me know if the snow is festive or annoying.  After all, the name of the blog is not “The View from the Snowglobe”.

* Government-speak I picked up in Ottawa.  Orwellian, don’tcha think?